This is the second album from the German outfit formed in 2012, with their debut released 5 years ago. While they describe themselves as a thrash band with a Bay Area sound, they are quite a bit more than just that. Especially since they have nearly 40 years of improvement in recording techniques and more than just 4 bands to pull influences from. Just vocally I hear tinges of Sean Killian, Dave Mustaine and John Connelly, just to name a few.
The beautiful instrumental intro “Sounds of Oppression” ushers in the album with finger picked acoustic guitars and Marcel’s bass filling out the bottom end, before dropping you unceremoniously into the hyper-fast thrash of “Propaganda” where Ingo and Raafat’s heady guitar riffs have Hamdi’s rapid footwork running alongside them over Moustafa Troll’s vocals.
Maintaining the pace and seemingly hating his snare drum, from the beating Hamdi’s giving it, “Plan-B (Terror)” is filled with lead trade-offs that Exodus’s H-Team would be proud of.
Starting gently with an acoustic guitar and a slowly building lead, “Human Race” has the drums kick in and the lead become far more powerful, then as the steady drumming encourages the riffing intensity, it becomes more bouncy for the chorus before the lead take off again to wrap up the song.
A pretty straight forward thrash riff with accompanying lead has Moustafa sound like he’s singing through gritted teeth on “United in Hypocrisy”, ala Mustaine, before opening his mouth to increase his vocal range and hit some higher notes.
A nice drum and bass medley is joined by a lead guitar before more gritted teeth vocals on the mid-tempoed “Silence of Justice” use the drum tempo for their cadence, the song then ends with the lead over the bass run and shouted vocals.
Squealing guitars become heavy riffs once joined by the manic drumming on “Apartheid”, as the vocals flick between deeper chants and higher pitched angry rasps.
I clever tempo is rolled out on the drums for “Chaos Invasion (2050)” as the guitars swap between lead rhythm over the popping bass notes, which allows them that freedom.
The no holds barred speed of “War of Nations” even had the vocals racing along before they slow down to keep their own pace as the triplets are still tattooed onto the kick drum.
“Killer Disease (Alienated)” is rather topical, as the song lets the guitars and drums ebb and flow to give it a varied tempo full of weird timing signatures that somehow still manage to flow together seamlessly.
They wrap up the album with “Child of Dreams”, where there are bouncy moments, but for the most part the song is driven by the unrelenting double kick that you feel reverberating in your chest cavity, before a very bluesy lead invites spoken lyrics followed by a heady bass groove as everything builds for a final crescendo.
I enjoyed this, and as they say, they are paying homage to 80’s/90’s thrash, but with far better and heavier sound to give it that kick to prevent it sounding dated and cliched.
(7/10 Marco Gaminara)
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